The present invention is related to a visual indexing system which analyzes contents of source video and develops a visual table of contents using selected images.
Users will often record home videos or record television programs, movies, concerts, sports events, etc. on a tape for later or repeated viewing. Often, a video will have varied content or be of great length. However, a user may not write down what is on a recorded tape and may not remember what she recorded on a tape or where on a tape particular scenes, movies, events are recorded. Thus, a user may have to sit and view an entire tape to remember what is on the tape.
Video content analysis uses automatic and semi-automatic methods to extract information that describes contents of the recorded material. Video content indexing and analysis extracts structure and meaning from visual cues in the video. Generally, a video clip is taken from a TV program or a home video.
In a system described by Hongjiang Zhang, Chien Yong Low and Stephen W. Smoliar in "Video Parsing and Browsing Using Compressed Data", published in Multimedia Tools and Applications in 1995, (pp. 89-111) corresponding blocks between two video frames are compared and the difference between all blocks totaled over the complete video frame without separating out block types.
The system of Zhang, however, may produce skewed results if several blocks have a difference in color or intensity. The present system attempts to prevent such skewed results.